Responsibility
by Oblakom
Summary: "What did you promise the day you brought that home?". "I… don't recall" Goku chuckled, scratching the back of his head, silently pleading his wife to not repeat the things he had said almost two weeks ago. Because if she did, there would have been… problems. "You promised" Chichi continued unabated [...] "That YOU were going to take care of him!".


**Warning:** Bad English, not my first language. Of course, I tried my best but, alas, sometimes it's not enough. _Responsibility_ is a translation of a fanfiction of mine. The original one – _Compiti_ – can be found on EFP, an Italian fanfiction site.

Short fanfiction, no expectations. I was just trying to make you smile.

 **Disclaimer:** Dragon Ball © Akira Toriyama

* * *

 _Responsibility_

«Get out! Both of you!».

An astonished silence was the only answer at Chichi's command. The two Sons, senior and junior, were staring at that fury in the form of a woman. They were standing there, puzzled, afraid of even paying a look at each other.

«But… Chichi, darling…» Goku finally moaned softly, his voice more similar to a pleading than to a complaint.

A vein throbbed on the woman's forehead. «Didn't you HEAR ME?» she roared putting her hands on her hips, the torso leaning forward towards her husband and a murderous glare lightning in her eyes.

Father and son leaped backward, spreading themselves against kitchen's wall.

«Mom…?» Gohan said weakly, glancing from one parent to another, wondering of what, for God's sake, his father managed to get himself guilty, this time.

«Chichi, calm down…» Goku tried with a timid smile, raising his hands in a sign of peace.

«CALM DOWN!» the woman yelled, making the Saiyan make a second jump. « _You are asking me to calm down!_ » she articulated, sounding as those seven words were the summary of some kind of mortal and unforgivable sin.

Goku moved his eyes, making to intercept Gohan's. But the five years old child just shrugged and shook his head, desolate.

«Oh! Then you don't know what you've done, do you!» Chichi continued, catching the gesture.

Goku winced guiltily. «Well… er… I… _no_ » he finally gave up.

«Good! Very good! Well, look at that irresponsible!» the woman rose her eyes to Heaven, maddened. Then she moved resolutely across the kitchen, arriving right in front of her husband.

When she pointed a finger less than a half centimeter from his chest, Goku recoiled, as he was trying to fuse himself with the wall.

Somewhere, out of his sight, he seemed to see from the corner of his eye the sway of a long white tail – the same color that was assumed by his face less than a half second later.

"Please, stay still, please" he pleaded with his eyes.

«It's not about what you done, it's about what you didn't!» Chichi accused him, tapping the finger against his chest. «Is it clear to you, now?».

Silence, and a bewildered look.

With great Saiyan's horror, the woman moved the finger from his chest to point it in a direction that he did not dare to look at – a dangerously similar direction to the one where he had seen the tail swaying only a few moments before.

«What did you promise the day you brought that home?».

«I… don't recall» Goku chuckled, scratching the back of his head, silently pleading his wife to _not_ repeat the things he had said almost two weeks ago. Because if she did, there would have been… _problems_.

«You promised» Chichi continued unabated, sending to hell all her husband's praying. «That YOU were going to take care of him!».

Goku groaned inwardly, closing his eyes. Quickly, he expanded his mind, looking for every single ki trails around there, because if there was something he had learned – and ironically it seemed that Goku, who started with the idea of _teaching_ , had been the only one to _learn_ something – it was that there were bombs that was much safer teleport than trying to defuse.

«'Don't worry, Chichi, darling, I will take care of everything, you will not even realize that he is here!'» his wife mimicked him, imitating the air of carefree positivity of her husband. «Well, I _am_ realizing he is here, and if things won't change he is going to stay at Bulma's, have I been clear?!».

The threat wiped the last trace of color from Goku's face. His brain was struggling to understand, at that point, if it was more dangerous the current situation – the one with 'the one who's presence Chichi was realizing' being treated as an unwanted parcel – or the one in which they would have found themselves if the aforementioned parcel would have actually been sent to the Capsule Corp.

«But… Chichi, honey… we cannot send him to Bulma's, Vegeta's there, you know…» he tried to remind her, hoping for her to foreseen even a fraction of the apocalyptic sceneries that would happen, in the case. «And he is not doing anything wrong… and… and, by the way, I promised that I am going take care of him» he added with a large smile.

«So why did he become Gohan's problem?! Since you brought him home Gohan didn't touch a book because he spends all his days looking after HIM!» yelled Chichi.

Goku winced again, more because of the exaggerated gesture that Chichi used to indicate the unwanted presence than because of her tone.

"Please, stay still, please".

«Now _take him_ , it's time for you to mosey! Shoo! Out! So my Gohan can finally get back to school» she commanded using the satisfied tone of someone that already knows to have the victory in her pocket.

«But… where are we supposed to go?» Goku asked, shocked, before the pale tail whipped on the floor, stealing his attention.

«I don't know, wherever you want! Take him to Bulma's, or take him to the park, there maybe he will have fun among capricious and spoiled brats like him, the little tyr-».

She didn't even have time to finish the sentence, that, in the time it takes light to travel in one millimeter, Goku sensed that – dear God – this time was the same owner of the tail that seemed about to move. And, even before the light had crossed its millimeter line, he had teleported himself on the other side of the kitchen, grabbed the tail and its owned and they were gone.

 _Definitely_ there were bombs that was much safer teleport than trying to defuse.

Seeing the house finally empty, Chichi took a deep breath, much quieter, and laid a gentle hand on her son's head.

«Now that your father has finally decided to shoulder his own responsibility you can study as long as you want, are you happy, darling?».

Somehow, Gohan managed to show a tremulous smile. «Yes».

Perhaps his mother didn't understand that it wouldn't have been enough to send them to the park to make him stop worrying about what his father's new 'responsibility' could do. It wouldn't have been enough to send them to the other side of the planet, actually.

…It wouldn't have been enough to send them on Pluto, _actually_.

Inwardly the child rose his eyes to Heaven in silent praying.

"Good luck, daddy…".

* * *

The geese were flapping like crazy, quacking out loud while trying to get themselves as far as it was possible from the two strange figures that had suddenly appeared among them.

Great idea trust your instinct of survival, Goku considered. His brain was suggesting him to quickly follow the frightened animals. But instead of listening to it he just remained in midair, above mountains, far away from every human-being, looking everywhere but in the face of the creature he had forced to follow him there.

«Eheheheh… eh…» the Saiyan's giggle died slowly as he scratched his head, embarrassed and guilty. «Excuse her, it's just… She cares quite deeply about Gohan's culture, you see…» he felt himself obliged to explain, continuing to run his eyes over the landscape. «You're not mad, are you?».

He obtained no answer, but he didn't even need to look him in the face: the other's ki was seething like lava of a volcano ready to erupt, beside him. Great. _Not mad at all_.

Slowly and carefully, Goku took his eyes on the other ones.

«So… Are we going to the park…?» he dared to propose, _just talking for the sake of it_.

In that precise moment, seeing the way the alien closed his eyes and took a deep breath, with all his muscles contracted and his tail ready to crash into the Saiyan's head at any moment, anyone would have understood that they just threw themselves face-first over a landmine field… anyone whose name wasn't Son Goku, actually.

«We could get ice-cream!» he continued with encouraging tone, his eyes sparkling at the mere idea of a snack.

And the red eyes that flashed at him were sparkling too, but it was a different sparkle, a sparkle that sent a chill up the Saiyan's spine. Because, if it was true that he was certain to come out winner of an hypothetical battle between them, especially now that the other alien was considerably weakened by the horrible wound that basically bisected his body – a certainty that, among other thing, was the base of that foolish situation –, it was also true that he was not so enthusiast in having a repeat of the apocalyptic battle of Namecc and of its… _consequences_. As an exploded planet, for one thing.

«…Frieza?».

* * *

 _[…] anyone would have understood that they just threw themselves face-first over a landmine field […]:_ Maybe it sounds… _strange_. I translated it literally from the Italian "chiunque avrebbe capito di essersi appena buttato di pancia su un campo minato". It's a sort of sentence somehow alike to the expression "to carry a knife to a gunfight". Hope you don't mind my choice.


End file.
